Take Me Out To The Ballgame

Orioles Spring Training Games Draw A Crowd To The Box Office.

At 3:50 a.m. Thursday, Irene Kivetz was first in line outside the dark ballpark, determined to get her pick of seats for the Baltimore Orioles' inaugural spring season at Fort Lauderdale Stadium.

She sat alone in her lawn chair until other groggy baseball fans started arriving.

By 8:20 a.m., when the box office opened, the crowd numbered about three dozen. But the line soon swelled to more than 100, and some impatient fans even left empty-handed.

Waiting in line more than four hours - longer than each of the baseball games she will see in March - didn't bother Kivetz, 44, of Margate. She didn't even care that the games don't count.

Kivetz, whose husband slept while she stood in line, used to do the same thing for the Yankees. She would arrive early on the first day tickets went on sale. The Yankees, after playing 34 years in Fort Lauderdale, left last year for a new complex in Tampa.

On Thursday, Kivetz bought reserved seats for four Orioles games, including coveted tickets to see the Cleveland Indians and Boston Red Sox.

"I just like baseball," she said before dashing into a stadium bathroom to change into a red suit for work. "I'm excited about seeing Cal Ripken."

So are many baseball fans, who repeated the Ironman's name as they chatted in line between sips of coffee and bites of danish.

Ripken is the popular Orioles shortstop who broke Lou Gehrig's consecutive game-playing record last season and won recognition as Sports Illustrated's Sportsman of the Year.

The Orioles will play 13 games at Fort Lauderdale Stadium, 5301 NW 12th Ave. No games sold out Thursday. The stadium holds 8,340 seats. The Yankees sold out four or five games a year, averaging 7,100 seats per game.

The number of tickets the Orioles sold Thursday wasn't available, but fans, stadium workers and team executives said they were thrilled with the turnout.

"We didn't know what to expect," said Joe Vacek Jr., the Orioles assistant box office manager. "We didn't have time to do any advertising beforehand so we're real happy with the response."

The team signed a one-year deal in December to play in Fort Lauderdale with an option for another year. A longer-term deal will hinge on finding a location in Broward County for the Orioles' minor-league teams, which train in Sarasota.

The Orioles already have a following in South Florida from their spring training years in Miami, where they played until 1988.

"I hope we keep them here longer than a year," said Jose Villar, an engineer from Coral Gables.

At 9 a.m., he was 137th in a line that snaked up the ramp on the first-base side.

Facing a twoto three-hour wait, Villar said he would use the time to think of an excuse to tell his boss.

Some people were smarter.

They got time off work by agreeing to buy tickets for bosses, or figured they would surprise supervisors with free tickets.

"I came out of the womb a Yankees fan," said Hollywood resident Gordie Kennelly, 49, wearing a Yankees cap and shirt.

Though not an Orioles fan, Kennelly said he bought tickets for a "spring baseball fix" and to boo the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Stadium workers have tried to "Oriolize" the stadium by planting orange impatiens in flower beds, putting birds on the scoreboard, stenciling the team's name on the dugout and adding dark-green accents to help the field resemble Camden Yards, where the Orioles play their regular season.